Autonomous Urbanism

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are appearing on our roads, representing the next technological disruption to our mobility systems. While their long-term spatial implications remain largely underestimated, this book argues that AVs offer a major opportunity to rethink our city’s built environments –with profound implications on urban life since automobiles replaced horse-powered travel and changed the design of cities in the prior century. However, driverless vehicles also risk reinforcing many of the negative effects of auto-based urbanism including urban sprawl, single-function infrastructure, congestion, and environmental degradation. Instead, this book proposes a driverless mobility paradigm shift that moves cities away from automobile dependency towards automated mass transit and mobility as a service –using the city of Los Angeles as a testbed.

In this two-volume set, one book depicts the narrative experience of this future city through the format of an architectural graphic novel. The other lays the framework for that speculative future, grounding it in urban mobility history, transportation policies, and multi-scalar spatial typologies. By envisioning this future guided by design and policy actions, this book contends that cities can transition from the Autopias of today, to the Transitopias of tomorrow. This is a big shift. Are cities and their inhabitants ready?